Fallback
by HilaryHilary
Summary: It hasn't been forever. I'll admit to it, I gave you up. Because I wanted you to be happy, because I convinced myself that I already was. Looking back, it makes no sense. Even to me.' Brouth, oneshot.


Fallback

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Author's note: I've been writer's blocking with Never Forget so we all know what that means... angsty oneshots instead! So yeah, I'll write one about a less disagreeable pairing later. Put in a request for a couple if you'd like, and I'll write it and eventually try to get back to NF.

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It hasn't been forever. I'll admit to it, I gave you up. Because I wanted you to be happy, because I convinced myself that I already was. Looking back, it makes no sense. Even to me.

You've been around forever, but it never mattered. You couldn't have been farther away from my world, on by the river, with Lucas. Then, suddenly, everything changed. Lucas started going up in the world and I realized, for the first time, that I wasn't doomed. That I could change my life, that I didn't have to spend it being no one.

And somehow, inexplicably, we became friends.

I still don't understand how it happened. All I ever was was nice to you, which apparently is the only thing you'd never had. This is the girl who grew up in a mansion, ruled the school, captained the cheerleaders, and had never received kindness.

It could never last. It didn't. I went out of control, Lucas realized he'd been crazy to let you go. I stepped aside. I had to. I hoped, when you'd only been his second choice, and then so alone. But when he realized he wanted you, and when you knew it would make you happy? I didn't have a choice.

There was Erica, who I couldn't even hold on to for a whole summer. And then, there was Rachel.

She originally fascinated me because I thought she must have a better side, be the you of a year ago, striving to change, to make something of yourself. Looking back, I knew I was wrong. She was nothing on you. No one ever would be.

You're not happy. I would give anything to make you happy again. I already have. I gave up you. Some part of me needs to believe that you knew that.

Guys like me don't get girls like you.

And guys like Lucas can never let themselves be happy.

I watch. I wait. While everyone goes off to school. As Karen has her son and names him after his father. As Haley and Nathan celebrate the birth of their first and somehow, against all odds, hold it all together and flourish. I become an observer, waiting for them all to being their lives, together and apart.

It's not the same. Is anything, ever? Peyton eventually marries Jake, her heart finally mended. Whitey Durham dies, surrounded by everyone alive who ever meant anything to him. You flee to California, to start your own life. I don't blame you. If I could, I would get out, too.

They go faster. The years go faster and faster and faster, as my friends, in a blurry haze, get married, have babies, come, go, stop, start. I can't keep track of them all. I am named a godfather a few times, I try and fall in love again.

It doesn't stop. Every time I'm sure I can get over you you come back and make me remember. You come back out of the blue just as soon as I had made my mind up over you, you ask timid questions about Lucas, you treat me like your brother and then you disappear again, just as suddenly. We develop into a rhythm, all of us, and I can't make it or break it.

You weren't supposed to be forever. You were supposed to be my Unattainable, plain and simple. It was never, ever supposed to end like this.

But it's not over. My life is far from it.

One day you do come back, expectedly this time. One day everyone comes back, with taller children and skin with more lines. They all come back, but no one looks at anyone but you.

"Oh God, Mouth," you say, flinging yourself into my arms. And I catch you, hold you. It's been forever, but you still haven't gotten over him. You aren't hugging me for me, you're hugging for him. Hugging me, who once knew him best.

Maybe it could change. Maybe you could love me, maybe it doesn't have to end like this. Maybe I don't have to disentangle myself from your arms. Maybe I can let you stay there.

But maybe not.

I run, I hide. It's my fault. I broke the rules. Girls like Brooke Davis aren't meant for guys like me.


End file.
